The present invention relates to a novel heat exchange element and to an enclosure, for electronic assemblies, incorporating one or more of the heat exchange elements as structural wall portions.
In the past, environmentally sealed passively cooled enclosures typically utilized extruded heat sinks attached to the inside and outside of the enclosure walls with the utilization of gasketting to seal the enclosure. Such constructions have routinely been used in high cost military devices and have the disadvantage of that high cost and of being unduly heavy.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a lightweight, low-cost heat exchange element preferably having a relatively high surface area to volume ratio by comparison with prior art heat exchangers.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an enclosure for electronic assemblies incorporating one or more of said heat exchange elements as structural wall portions, preferably arranged for counterflow heat exchange using forced convection inside the enclosure and natural convection outside of the enclosure.